that agency today is still without a leader more than a year after president obama took office. not because the president hasn t tried. two of his nominees dropped out after his nominees ran into trouble. let s get to james rosen. he s on this for us today. is this nail failure on the is this failure on the part of the white house or the republicans trying to and talk his nominee? reporter: a little bit of both. errol southers withdraw after acknowledging to lawmakers he used a federal database to get information about the boyfriend of his estranged wife. major harding withdraw after the
there, don. arwa damon, where it s early in the morning in baghdad. thank you, arwa. president barack obama finally is about to name a new nominee to head the transportation security administration. sources tell cnn it is retired major general robert harding. among other things, harding served in the army for 33 years. the president s original pick for the job, errol southers, withdrew his name to avoid a senate confirmation battle. the tsa has been without someone at the top for more than a year now. u.s. troops are pulling out of haiti s devastated capital. it s been almost two months since a quake hit port-au-prince. and now that american forces are leaving u.n. peacekeepers and local police are going to have to step up. more than 500,000 people are still homeless and living in tent cities. general david petraeus says he will tell congress that overturning the military s don t ask, don t tell policy is something that can be worked through. the head of central command told cn
military he founded a company which provided security solutions to the u.s. intelligence and defense communities. what you don t see on his resume is any indication he s worked in the aviation or transportation area or that he s had much interaction with the private sector, but it may be that in the wake of that attempted christmas day bombing they ve decided the intelligence component is the most important thing, john. interesting aspect there to this whole thing. remind us again, jean, why this job has been vacant while there hasn t been a permanent person in place since president obama took office, still using the person who was there during the bush administration? well, they ve had an acting administrator since kip holly left at the end of the bush administration, and the obama administration has gotten some criticism for having such a key job empty for so long because it took until last september to nominate errol southers for the post. he eventually withdrew after questions
roger harding has 33 years of army service, much of it in top military intelligence jobs. if there were ever a nominee who warranted expedited and detailed consideration in the senate, this is it. errol southers, the previous nominee, never did get a full vote. he withdrew his name. but senator jim demint put a hold over unionizing tsa officers. demint says that would slow the agency s responsiveness, but yust unions involved said it shouldn t be an issue. those wo say they re going to hold this up and then in the same breath say they re worried about national security, they ought to look look at what they re saying. reporter: it is unclear whether demint will hold up the
there, don. arwa damon, where it s early in the morning in baghdad. thank you, arwa. president barack obama finally is about to name a new nominee to head the transportation security administration. sources tell cnn it is retired major general robert harding. among other things, harding served in the army for 33 years. the president s original pick for the job, errol southers, withdrew his name to avoid a senate confirmation battle. the tsa has been without someone at the top for more than a year now. u.s. troops are pulling out of haiti s devastated capital. it s been almost two months since a quake hit port-au-prince. and now that american forces are leaving u.n. peacekeepers and local police are going to have to step up. more than 500,000 people are still homeless and living in tent cities. general david petraeus says he will tell congress that overturning the military s don t ask, don t tell policy is something that can be worked through. the head of central command told cn